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This past summer, Rick Springfield toured Europe with the Rock Meets Classic tour – an annual European tour featuring classic rock artists backed up by a symphony orchestra – and I guess he enjoyed it because now tickets are on sale for a June 29, 2018 show with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes totally unrelated parts of your life have mysterious connections that you can’t really explain and it just seems so funny although if you actually tell somebody about it, you feel a little silly? Well, this blog seems like a good place to share this, so here’s an example:

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been binge-watching the television show “Nashville” (I just started Season 4) so the news of RS playing in Nashville fits right into that particular track of my life. AND in the episode that I just started watching, rock star Markus Keen just arrived in Nashville after being signed to Rayna James’ label.

That’s it. Nothing too monumental and I’m not expecting Luke Wheeler to be a special guest at next year’s show or anything, but I just thought that was kind of funny.

Rick Springfield’s upcoming CD “The Snake King” is starting to get some press – with an article that came out yesterday on Bristol Herald Courier in advance of a concert this weekend.

The article had this quote: “I have a new CD coming out called ‘The Snake King’ that has the potential to put the final nail in the old teenybopper coffin,” said Springfield.

Unfortunately the article cut off in the middle of a sentence, so there wasn’t any clear explanation of why this might be (Update: The missing text is added, but no more info on the new CD) . For RS fans who have listened to “Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance” or read “Late, Late at Night,” that shiny, happy teenybopper image dissolved long ago. (For me it was in 2014 when I “rediscovered” Rick Springfield although SDAA came out in 2004 and his autobiography in 2010.)

He’s also alluded to the idea that even his current fans might not like it because it’s so drastically different than what he’s done in the past. But last year’s “Rocket Science,” had a country feel and now it’s one of my favorite CDs, although country is a genre I was never particularly fond of. (Lately I have been binge-watching “Nashville,” a show I watched a few episodes of a couple years ago in preparation for the release of “Rocket Science.” RS connection: Rascal Flatt’s Jay DeMarcus – who co-wrote “Down” with RS – was on an episode I recently watched, writing a song with one of the characters.)

Back in 2015, RS was already performing some of his “Rocket Science” songs in concert before the 2016 release of the CD (“Light this Party Up” and “Down”), so maybe we’ll hear a song or two at an upcoming concert (and hopefully somebody will share the video online). He usually includes at least one blues song in his set list at concerts, which showcases his awesome guitar skills so I’m looking forward to hearing his original blues songs.

I’m not sure how accurately “Nashville” depicts the music business scene, but one clear message I’ve gotten is that the artists don’t always get to record the songs they want to perform because once they sign with a label, they often have to do what their record label dictates and not what they want to do. (It’s made me appreciate that I have full creative control of my own songs, even though nobody besides my immediate family actually hears them.)

So as a longtime RS fan, I’m thrilled that he’s making new music and that his repertoire of songs covers so many different styles.

At last night’s Yahoo live stream of the Nashville concert, RS debuted “That One.” Such a WONDERFUL song! A recent review says that it has a strong country sound on the CD, but the live version didn’t sound country at all.

I watched the show on my phone last night and it didn’t sound like RS’s mic was on, but when I tried it on my computer today, it sounded fine. The songs sounded so different without RS’s mic (obviously). The band’s background vocals sounded great, but it gave the songs a whole different sound hearing only their harmonies and some of the other background sounds without RS’s part. Not sure what technical issues caused that, but it did make me appreciate all the details that go into making a great show.

I’m not sure how long it will be available, but today you can still watch the show here.

Not only is there going to be a Yahoo Live Nation live stream of tonight’s concert at the Wildhorse Saloon, there are also gracious fans sharing all the festivities live via Periscope from Nashville: soundcheck, CD signing and both concerts. Search for “Rick Springfield” on Twitter to find them. Also, if you click on the picture of the Earth on the Periscope menu, there’s a map and you can zoom into Nashville and you may be able to find them that way, too (it’s a great geography lesson). But don’t delay – the videos disappear after 24 hours.

So fun – at the very moment I’m writing this in Phoenix, I’m watching RS play “That One” at a sound check in Nashville. How cool is that?! Thank you, thank you to those sharing their sound check! (By the way, the songs don’t sound country at all at the sound check.)

He’s also making the rounds on TV, too. It’s even better than the “Ricki and the Flash” visits because he gets to play his songs – yay!

OK, fine. Jessie’s Girl it is. Although there are hours and hours of other songs by Rick Springfield over the past 40 years, if that’s the one that will make people take notice of him again, fine, play it again.

If Jessie’s Girl is the song that keeps getting mentioned over and over again in tweets and what draws people to his concerts, fine, play it again.

For those of you who missed it, he was on for a few seconds in a pre-taped segment on tonight’s CMT Music Awards Show, busking on a Nashville sidewalk. Arnold Schwarzenegger is driving by as a Uber-spoof chauffer (Tom Arnold is one of his passengers) and a woman in the backseat (one of the show’s hosts) points out RS on the sidewalk. Arnold abruptly stops the car as RS finishes singing Jessie’s Girl and Arnold asks him to play it again. “Come on dude, I already played it like 10 times,” RS replies. Then Arnold gives him that “don’t mess with me” look and responds in a Terminator-ish voice, “Play it again.”

So if a few lines of Jessie’s Girl on a national country music awards show that attracts a large audience (about 3 million viewers tuned into last year’s show) is what’s necessary for RS to get the exposure he deserves, then fine, play it again.